mgo.licio.us

"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

The course of the season showed that if Michigan was going to make the Frozen Four they were going to do it one way: narrowly. If you need a number, during the course of the UNO broadcast they put up a stat showing Michigan's record in one-goal games was 10-3. That's just how they do.

That record is now up to 12-3 after history's greatest video review and the Joe Howe show (wsgs Joe Howe's Posts) and if there was ever any chance we remembered this hockey team as the weird one that kind of reminded you of Ron Mason that's gone now. This team isn't trying to win games –1 to –2 but you'd be forgiven if sometimes you thought they were.

It's working, though. I spent the second intermission Saturday thinking about Buffalo, when Michigan dominated Minnesota for two periods but didn't put enough of that domination on the scoreboard to prevent Minnesota's rally from tying the game; Michigan lost the game and Al Montoya's brain in overtime on one of those bizarrely frequent OT goals that comes from almost the goal line on the left side of the net*. I spent the third period thinking about how beautifully boring it was until Red channeled into Lloyd Carr by slipping Jeff Rohrkemper out there for a power play shift. He was immediately punished for punting from the 34 by a Rohkemper boarding penalty and nine seconds later CC fumbled a puck into the net. Everyone braced for a storm. That storm was a single pea-sized hailstone. The most nervous moment after that was a bunch of players rooting for the puck on the boards with the goalie out and twenty seconds left.

Michigan had outshot their opponent 43-22, played a game universally acclaimed as their best of the season, and won 2-1 because Scooter is an animal and pucks that come off Lee Moffie's stick will hit the post and go in even if they have to deflect off three guys to do it. There is a natural inertia pulling them towards narrow wins you're uncertain about; even now that they've reached the Frozen Four there's a feeling they don't really match up with a North Dakota.

There's also the feeling they just might, though. Because what the hell, Michigan's 11-1 since the line shakeup after Michigan's dismal 0-3 stretch against MSU and Miami. Season goals slipping away and faced with the question of how to get the most use out of some good forwards who never, ever score Michigan put together a vintage Todd Marchant checking line and let anyone who might put the puck in the net forget about guys like Jaden Schwartz.

This has been remarkably effective. If the announcer didn't bring his name up every time he wasn't making a joke-type assertion about the "hockey hotbeds" of California, Texas, and Arizona, the viewer could have forgotten about Jaden Schwartz. Lingering irritation at Matt Rust's bad OT penalty against UNO evaporated as his line erased Schwartz, Schwartz, and Schultz with a healthy assist from Jon Merill at his most subtly awesome. The Schwartzes got their goal on a four-on-four scramble; everything other than that was frustration. In the second period they started jawing and shoving people because they were getting nothing. This was one day after they turned defending national champs Boston College into a lump of smoking carbon.

I watched North Dakota pummel two teams, one of them not even in the ECAC, this weekend. I remember Michigan's last two not-very-competitive matchups against them. I have considerable doubts that Michigan will beat them since they're by far the best team left standing. Doubts about doubts come when you close your eyes and see Jon Merrill gently shepherding you, the puck, and a hockey team into a deep, peaceful sleep as Matt Rust obscures the face of North Dakota Hobey finalist… oh… you know… what's his name.

A Tiny Window Of White Bullets

Scooter!

Also the other two goals but mostly Scooter!

You do not have a twitter account that concerns itself with Michigan hockey if you didn't tweet "Scooter" followed by one to three exclamation points after his goal, which was completely unbelievable even as it was happening. CC does not have the greatest defensemen in the world but holy crap where did that come from?

Monster faceoffs. Michigan both faced and received extended periods of 5-on-3 time in the first period, and during both they got clean, critical faceoff wins. Moffie's goal was a direct result. The lack of a CC goal on their terrifying PP was greatly aided, as well.

Clare escape. To recap the thing I kept talking about during the game: after a tough shift in which Pateryn and Clare got caught in the zone forever, allowing the Schwartz line to get out against them and some other random non-Rust forwards, Red pulled Clare out of the lineup for more than a period. Pateryn took shifts with the second pair D to give guys a break. Clare returned about halfway through the second and actually got some PK time a bit later, which I guess makes sense because your breakout on the PK is slapping the puck down the ice. I saw him out there a couple times in the third, as well, but his minutes were minimized.

All this invites questions about Burlon's availability. He's got two weeks to recover from his strep and penicillin reaction, so I imagine he'll be in the lineup. Losing 15 pounds is kind of a lot, though, and I wonder how effective he'll be.

RNG in full effect. Hockey's vaguely weighted plinko system was a little more random than normal this time around: FF participants are two three-seeds, a two, and a one. One seeds went 2-2 in the first round, bringing their record against fours to 11-9 the last five years. That goes beyond "anything can happen" into "your excellent season gets you nothing."

What's wrong? I don't think you can blame the Pairwise. The "better"* ranking system, KRACH, already updated for the weekend's results and still has Yale a #1. The only difference between KRACH's top seeds and the PWRs is putting Denver above Miami, and there's a fair chance that wasn't the case before the events of the weekend.

You can blame insular schedules. Yale's nonconference schedule consisted of single games against CC, Air Force, Cornell, and Vermont and an "Ivy Shootout" against other ECAC members. The only evidence we had that Yale was a top seed other than their ECAC schedule was a 5-1 win over a .500 WCHA team and a 2-1 record against Atlantic Hockey—yeah, they'd already lost to first-round opponent Air Force.

This vapor-thin trail coupled with some other ECAC nonconference games convinced the ranking systems the conference didn't suck despite years of evidence to the contrary. The last ECAC team to make the Frozen Four was Cornell in 2003 and that last to win a title was Harvard in 1989.

That only explains perpetually disappointing ECAC #1s, which are rare. The rest of it is on a tournament format which has #1 Miami play #4 UNH in New Hampshire in a single-elimination game.

*[FWIW, KRACH is mathematically pure but has a tendency to go nuts about nonconference results. In certain years it would put up to eight WCHA teams, some well below .500, into the field.]

Abandabuildings. It was no surprise to see literally every seat in the upper bowl in St. Louis empty. We wondered if a couple of friends had actually made the trip despite stern clucking about teaching the NCAA a lesson, and I said "if they did they'll be on TV because they'll be the only people there," and midway through the second there they were. Even the NCAA's comically generous numbers only show 55% capacity.

Every year we get sterile half-full buildings as teams get shipped halfway across the country and fans have to deal with the possibility they'll get on a plane to see their team play once, or if they're lucky play twice and make the Frozen Four and then you've blown your budget on regionals already. Insert usual rant about using home sites here.

The good news is the NCAA has not selected regional sites past next year. In the past sites have been selected three to four years out, so that's a clear sign this failed format is on its last legs. Last year there was a report out of Grand Forks that change was coming, with home sites and "super regionals" of an undetermined nature.

The bad news is that once again the CCHA has no regionals within hundreds of miles of it—the closest is in Green Bay as the St. Louis regional moves to St. Paul. At least Michigan's getting out of that rinky-dink operation, and as a bonus the failures of its commissioner* now directly benefit it.

*[Seriously, what has Anastos done since 1998 that a lump of quartz couldn't? The CCHA has gone nowhere, and has clearly become the region of the country that either gets screwed over by the committee or can't scrape together a bid that makes any more sense than having a regional in St. Louis.]

I am Jack's total lack of surprise. The crew doing the Yale-UMD game that chucked Yale's best player out of the game for a clean open-ice hit were from the CCHA. Yale's coach was infuriated enough afterwards to lead his presser with "the game was taken away from us." Yet more reason to be happy we're getting away from the league—hopefully most of the refs don't follow.

“I think they did have a few pretty good shots early on,” Hunwick said. “But this is an opportunity to play for the Frozen Four. I think I made a couple good saves. It’s pretty easy to stay in the game when you’re playing to go to the Frozen Four. They didn’t really get anything going too much until they got into the power play. Once they got into the power play, I really had to be sharp.”

Seriously, that power play was terrifying. That first period five on three was awful.

Everyone around me was happily freaking out. That was good because it drowned out the flurry of naughtiness that was coming out of my mouth. The puck barely slowed down as it went through the goalie. Terrible.

I swear that puck was in the air at the time the whistle went. I thought for sure they were going to award that goal because it was inevitable regardless of whether people kept playing or not. That puck was going in the net. Was it Gajic that "scored" that one? I remember looking at my ex-wife and saying "We're going to lose" after they waved it off. She said don't be silly. Yet another reason I'm glad we're divorced. She never understood how cruel fate could be.

"I figure if I can get two degrees from Ohio State, it might be close to Elliott’s undergraduate degree" -- Brock

Steve Brown Career Resuscitation of the Year Award. Seriously, with the way he's played an agressive forward this year while still having more than respectable defensive responsibility as a forward, can't you see an NHL team taking a chance he'll be a Matthieu Dandenault like 3/4 line guy?

"So I come out of Ohio Stadium after we beat the Buckeyes, and right there on the hood of my friend's car, some one took a dump, in the shape of an 'O'. no shit. Oh, sorry, bad pun."

Can we talk about the incredible restraint that Winnett (I think it was Winnett. Correct me if I'm wrong) showed in drawing a late hit penalty early in the 2nd period against UNO. Every other time that has happened in my 3 years of watching this hockey team, we retaliate and also get a penalty, especially when we're losing. Winnett simply took the hit, didn't retaliate, and we got a power play that swung the momentum of the game.

I was watching ESPN-U and I missed Scooter's goal because the Miin-Duluth game went long. I was really impressed by the defensive play during the 2nd and 3rd periods. They really looked sharp. I didn't watch any of the DU/NoDak game (but wanted to). They'll need to play well to stay in the game versus NoDak. Let's hope Hunwick can stand on his head and karma pays him back for last year's game, versus Miami (NTM), in Ft. Wayne.

As a senior, I still vividly remember the UM team that was supposed to repeat instead get dominated by UND at the Frozen Four in Milwaukee until a late Morrison goal made it close (and gave us faint hope). The entire building was rooting against UM except UM fans and took such joy in our demise. UND should be the favorite in the upcoming match-up, just as UM was the favorite back in 97. Let's turn the tables this time!

I'm glad you didn't again state that the Michigan hockey faithful shouldn't make the trip to St. Paul. I made the trip out to St. Louis this weekend and was damn glad I did. I bought tickets thru the ticket office and when I arrived to pick them up they told us "thanks for your continued support and in appreciation of you traveling down here your tickets are on us." So I guess I should thank you Brian for telling people not to travel down there, as the limited number of students (probably single digits) making the trip allowed them to comp us for our tickets. But really think twice before asking the Michigan fan base to not show their support their team, that still irks me. Other than that, St. Louis was a great city minus the snow that we brought with us on our travel.

Second-greatest video review ever. The greatest took even longer, happened in 2OT, and resulted in the awarding of a goal that should've been awarded five minutes before the whistle because the puck went through the back of the net without anyone noticing. That was UVM-AFA, two years ago.

I was screaming the same thing to my dad when the fourth line came in during the third period saturday. The defensemen weren't pushing up, which is fine I guess with a 2-0 lead, but it was frustrating to see the fourth line come in and take a penalty. Hunwick was awesome and that wraparound rejection with one second on the clock was super.

But brian, I disagree about one thing: This IS the year (knocking on wood). We're playing team hockey, the defense is strong, and it is clear Hunwick plays his best in single elimination. Anyone else pumped about going to minnesota, eh?

Let's presume for the moment that this makes the Scottrade Center a 10,000 seat arena, on par with the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester. Some quick changes on the spreadsheet means that the average capacity over the right days ways then 62%, still not kicking.

After all, as you point out later, they got totally jobbed by the CCHA refs. (In their defense, the same crew called a great game the night before -- few penalties, on the right team when they were called; against them, the refs also helped UMD out with a goalie interference call a few minutes earlier in which a Yale guy -- who had the puck -- was tripped from behind and made momentary contact with the goalie. As with all bad calls, the ensuing PP resulted in a goal for UMD.)

I think there is also a bit of a mid-major BB/ Boise St. FB problem here. How many WCHA and CCHA teams were willing to go east and play in ECAC arenas? (edit: looked it up, and it is low -- two wcha teams paid a visit to ecac arenas, and one of those was for a tournament hosted by Dartmouth; three ccha teams made trips, bgsu twice). And then, at least for the 6 Ivy teams, conference rules limit them to 29 regular season games, starting roughly November 1 -- leaving room for just 7 out-of-conference (some of which, for politicalish reasons, need to be against local teams). The "Ivy Shootout" is an artifact of that -- I think the four that participated wanted to start off against teams in the same boat. (That said, I'm not a big fan of it.)

And a correction or two: Cornell, of course, is ECAC, and Vermont is Hockey East. FWIW, Yale's other two AHA opponents (the wins) were againt Sacred Heart (local, and not very good) and Holy Cross (a little less local, not much better).